Many Bay Area home brewers are trying their hands at growing their own hops.

On a sunny day last week, Sam Gilbert dug a hole in the backyard of BrewLab SF‘s headquarters, into which he placed a hops rhizome.

Over the next several months, the rhizome, which looks like a stick with roots poking out of it, will grow vines that will produce a vital component of Gilbert’s home-brewed beer.

“Every brewer to some extent dreams of making a beer with their own hops,” Gilbert says.

Gilbert, co-founder of the home brewers’ collective, joins other dedicated home brewers throughout the Bay Area who have taken their craft to another level by growing their own hops. As home brewing soars in popularity, so does the allure of raising hops, a climbing vine that is inexpensive and easy to grow.

Sam Gilbert holds a Centennial hops rhizome to be planted in his backyard in San Francisco’s southern Mission District. His home serves as the headquarters for BrewLab SF.

“It comes down to passion,” says Ian Dunbar-Hall, who is part of a home brewing group called Euphemia Ales in San Francisco. “One way to extend that passion is to grow your own ingredients. While we don’t have the ability to necessarily grow our grain, we can grow our own hops.”

More than a few members of the Bay Area Mashers home brew club are finally trying their hand at growing hops this year, says president Justin Unverricht.

“I have seen a large increase in people wanting to grow their own hops,” he says. “More people are aware of how to do it and there is now a fairly large wealth of information for people who are interested. If you have the space, it’s a fun distraction.”

“Everyone kind of prizes having the freshest hops possible in their beer,” Gilbert says. “There is no better way to control that than for it to be your own hops.”

Sam Gilbert plants a Centennial hops rhizome between cilantro and rosemary plants, which will also be used in home-brewed beer.

Chad Gallagher of Berkeley began growing hops because he wanted to be involved in another aspect of the beer-making process. He started four years ago at a time when hops were very expensive because of a hops shortage.

Today, you can find hops rhizomes at home brew stores in the spring for $4-$5, but with hops being a hot commodity, growing your own ensures a steady supply. It can also be difficult to buy fresh hops to make a wet hops beer.

“There are some varieties that are in such demand that many home brew shops and hop distributors ration them out to a few ounces to home brewers at a time,” Unverricht says. “Large breweries often have direct deals with the hop farmers themselves to secure access to certain hops, but competition is pretty fierce.”

Hops rhizomes produce vines that can reach 20 to 30 feet with plenty of sunlight and water. It takes about three years for a hops plant to fully mature and develop its root system. Gallagher, who grows four hops varieties, has been impressed with how quickly they can grow under the right conditions.

“On a hot day,” he says, “they’ll grow two to three inches.”

But hops need regular maintenance and must be cut down to the ground after each harvest, says James Davids, an enologist with San Francisco Brewcraft.

“It’s a pretty crazy plant,” Davids says. “After a year or two, it could take over the entire side of your house.”

The home brewing supply store sells 10 different hops varieties, but not all grow well in some parts of the Bay Area with its varying microclimates.

“Cascade or Centennial tend to do well whether it’s foggy or sunny,” Davids says.

Gilbert is growing six or seven hops varieties, including Cascade, Centennial, Nugget, Goldings and Fuggles. They are a mix of rhizomes and mature plants donated by a BrewLab brewer, all of which he hopes will produce enough hops to brew roughly 15 to 20 gallons of beer.

Like many home brewers who grow their own hops, he’ll make a wet hops beer. Since hops have a very short shelf life once they are harvested, they are usually dried or pelletized. Gilbert will instead add the just-harvested hops to the boil kettle to impart a fresh, grassy flavor.

“It’s more seasonal than any other beer,” says Dunbar-Hall.

Dunbar-Hall grows 32 plants with eight hops varieties on his family’s property north of Napa, which he says would produce more beer than he and his two partners could ever drink. They’ll use some of the hops to make a wet hops double IPA, and will give the rest to other home brewers or possibly team up with a local brewery for a wet hops beer.

On his family’s 85-acre plot of land north of Napa, Dunbar-Hall grows hops on two 16-foot trellis systems. Photo credit: Ian Dunbar-Hall

Keep an eye out for wet hops beers on tap at local brew pubs around the harvest season from August through late September, he says. Sierra Nevada also makes Northern and Southern Hemisphere Harvest Wet Hop Ales.

With home brewed wet hops beers, there can be a lot of guesswork because unlike commercially-available hops, which are lab-tested, it is harder to determine the bitterness of backyard hops.

“Personally, I’m excited about making a beer completely with my own hops so I think I’ll play that roulette and see what happens,” Gilbert says. “Hopefully I’ll get something that isn’t too bitter to drink or not bitter enough.”

Hops are definitely taking off here in El Cerrito. Do you know of any ways to ballpark bitterness levels? Or the best way to taste-test (before brewing) against a known commercial sample? Growing my own for the first time this year — some for us, some to share with other local homebrewers. Trying 7 varieties to see which does best here: http://www.plantandplate.com/2013/03/planting-the-hopyard/

Hi, Sam here from the article. There is a really cool way to taste test the bitterness of your hops that I’ve heard works reasonably well–basically make a tea with your hops and a commercial hop of the same strain, and then see how much sugar it takes to offset the bitterness in each cup. More details in the “Estimating Hop Bitterness” section of this article: http://pw1.netcom.com/~dluzanp/backyard.htm

Author

Tilde Herrera

Tilde Herrera is a San Francisco-based journalist who spends an inordinate amount of time plotting her next meal. Over the course of her career, she has reviewed restaurants, covered the commercial fishing industry in Florida and tracked the greening of mainstream Fortune 500 companies. Her work, covering food, business and sustainability, has appeared at the San Francisco Chronicle, Grist and GreenBiz, among others.